The word eugenics comes from the Greek word eu, meaning "good" or "well," and the suffix -genēs, meaning born. It was coined by Sir Francis Galton in 1883, to describe the study of methods under human control which can improve or impair the human race by controlling reproduction. Infanticide, reprogenetics, abortion, compulsory sterilization, euthanasia and designer babies are all forms of eugenics.
The eugenics philosophy can be traced back (in non-biblical sources) to at least as far as Plato, who argued in the Republic that the state should monitor and control the reproduction of its citizens. He advocated that eugenics policies be carried out through deception and proposed a sort of "marriage lottery," among other things, by which to carry the plan out. Read Plato's Republic here.
Many eugenics policies have been carried out throughout history, particularly in pagan cultures. For example, eugenics policies such as infanticide, were carried out in Ancient Greece, and then the Roman Empire, for several hundred years, before the practice was ultimately ended by the Christianization of the Roman Empire. Eugenics then fell into disfavor for some twelve thousand years until its revival in the later part of the nineteenth century, by Sir Francis Galton, a relative of Charles Darwin.
Francis Galton thought charity was an unnatural act which upset the mechanism of natural selection by encouraging the poor and feeble to bear more children. Because of this, he thought the human race needed a form of artificial selection: eugenics. Galton ultimately desired eugenics to develop from science to religion (see Prometheanism).
Galton considered eugenics to be "the study of agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations, whether physically or mentally." The Eugenics Education Society used this definition on the cover of their Eugenics Review for a number of years.
One of the most famous American eugenicists was Charles Davenport. In 1904, he received funding from the Carnegie Institute to build the Biological Research Station at Cold Springs Harbor, and in 1910, he was again provided funds to build the Eugenics Records Office. Both facilities would play an important role in eugenics research.
The Eugenics Records Office was particularly useful in that it provided eugenicists with access to the medical histories of hundreds of thousands of Americans. This information allowed the later implementation of American eugenics laws to be enforced more effectively. In fact, eugenics programs throughout history appear to have been preceded by the mass collection of medical records and histories under the guise of health and efficiency.
Another famous eugenicist was Adolf Hitler, who attempted to procure what he deemed to be a "pure race" under the name of racial hygiene. The eugenics programs implemented during Hitler's reign successfully sterilized hundreds of thousands of people, and terminated millions more. In fact, his eugenics programs were so successful that they prompted one American eugenics advocate to push for an expansion of America's eugenics program, saying, "the Germans are beating us at our own game."
Other famous eugenicists include the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, the psychologist Henry H. Goddard, environmental conservationist Madison Grant, the founder of the American Sociological Society, William Graham Sumner, and President Theodore Roosevelt.
Eugenics as Religion
The spiritual dimension of eugenics is often overlooked. Many influential individuals including Francis Galton, George Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russel all advocated a eugenics religion. In fact, the American Journal of Eugenics advertised itself by informing prospective readers that it had formerly been known as "Lucifer the Light Bearer."
The first Director-General of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and English eugenicist Julian Huxley remarked, "I find myself inevitably driven to use the language of religion. For the fact is that all this does add up to something in the nature of a religion: perhaps one might call it Evolutionary Humanism. The word religion is often used restrictively to mean belief in gods; but I am not using it in this sense...I am using it in a broader sense, to denote an overall relation between man and his destiny, and one involving his deepest feelings, including his sense of what is sacred. In this broad sense, evolutionary humanism, it seems to me, is capable of becoming the germ of a new religion, not necessarily supplanting existing religions but supplementing them."
Even post-World War II eugenics organizations, such as the Population Council, recognized the "cultural, moral and spiritual nature" of their plans for world population reduction, and the social, moral and ethical questions which were raised by what they deemed to be a need for population control and reduction following the population explosion which took place after the war. Such sentiments are echoed even today by environmental conservationists who are following in the footsteps of Madison Grant.
It is also worthwhile to note that the American Eugenics Society member Joseph Fletcher, helped to develop the emerging field of Bioethics.
Transhumanism and Eugenics
Transhumanism, or Humanity Plus (H+), is an international intellectual and cultural movement which supports the use of science and technology to improve human mental and physical characteristics and capacities through biotechnologies and nonbiotechnologies in order to eliminate unnecessary and undesirable human traits and conditions such as disability, disease, aging and death. The goal of transhumanism is to bring about a posthuman world in which huamnity is no longer hindered by its undesirable features, and even enhanced by inhuman features.
There is no clear definition as to what is meant by "to improve" human biology, but perhaps a glimpse is offered in the definition of eugenics as stated by Sir Francis Galton: "the study of agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations, whether physically or mentally."
The term transhumanism itself was first used by the President of the British Eugenics Society (1959-1962), Julian Huxley, who said: "The human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself – not just sporadically, an individual here in one way, an individual there in another way – but in its entirety, as humanity. We need a name for this new belief. Perhaps transhumanism will serve: man remaining man, but transcending himself, by realizing new possibilities of and for his human nature."
Huxley also said, "Political unification in some sort of world government will be required... Even though... any radical eugenic policy will be for many years politically and psychologically impossible, it will be important for UNESCO to see that the eugenic problem is examined with the greatest care, and that the public mind is informed of the issues at stake so that much that now is unthinkable may at least become thinkable."
Sir Julian Huxley was not only the President of the British Eugenics Society and the man who coined the term transhumanism, but also the first Director-General of UNESCO, Secretary of the Zoological Society of London and a prominent environmental conservationist who was the founding member of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). His brother was Aldous Huxley, who wrote the classic novel entitled, Brave New World.
Eugenics and the Bible
The concept of eugenics goes back much further than Galton and even Plato, and the idea of ascending into godhood is even older than that. Eugenics and the concept of self-directed human evolution, as well as ascension to the throne of God, goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. In fact, when properly understood, the Holy Scriptures have quite a lot to say about the history and various forms of eugenics.
Man first began his attempt at self-directed evolution when he fell:
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. -Genesis 3:5-6
The word gods is "elohiym" (אלהים), meaning that the serpent was telling the woman that she would become as God, and both she and the man consciously chose to make that leap.
The fall is important because in it is found the curse that God places upon the serpent. It is because of this curse that the serpent is given motive for wanting to be directly involved in the genetic destiny of mankind. Indeed, if the serpent is able to annihilate the Image of God from earth by making the human species something other than human, then the serpent will have defeated God and shown His curse to be fruitless:
And I will put emnity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; and it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. -Genesis 3:15
Numerous attempts are made throughout the Scriptures by both God and Satan (the serpent) to control the genetic destiny of mankind, all beginning after the Fall of Man. The first major occurrence takes place right before the deluge in Genesis chapter 6:
And it came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bear children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. -Genesis 6:1-4
It was after this incident that God destroyed the world by flood in order to stop the abominable contamination of His Image on earth. Satan's plan has always been to abolish God's Image (humankind) from earth. Indeed, even many of the species created by God on the earth had been corrupted as is evident in the following destinction:
Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his family: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. -Genesis 7:2
Where did the unclean animals come from? Certainly the Lord God did not make them! God makes no unclean thing, and certainly they were no more unclean from the Fall of Man than any other beasts. The answer can only be that somehow these animals were contaminated while the "clean" animals were not.
Numerous other examples of eugenics occur, including the slaughtering of the firstborn, child sacrifice, genocidal wars, and the end times predictions of strange creatures, as well as the prophecy that man will take unto himself the image of the Beast and throw off the Image he was created in.
And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. -Revelation 13:16-17
It is important to note that Satan already failed in his attempt to stop the prophecy of Genesis when Christ came and defeated him at Calvary, but Satan's eugenics program continues in an attempt to thwart the prophecies concerning both Israel and the Church. The people of God cannot inherit the Kingdom of God if their seed is removed from the earth by the cunning plans of Satan. Thus, Satan has made numerous attempts to prevent this inheritance including the atrocities of the Holocaust and current eugenics and transhumanist programs.
Satan and his forces are continuously at work trying to erase God and His people from the face of the earth. Satan's ultimate goal is to make man in his image, according to his own imaginations, and remove God from the equation all together. Believers in the One True God must remain vigilant to the deceptive plans of the Enemy.
May the Lord God Almighty protect the Church and the Israeli people during the days of the return of the Nephilim, and the rise of the new religion of self-directed human evolution.
No comments:
Post a Comment